The Premier League recently held a three-day Coaching Craft event at St George’s Park for coaches on two inclusive coaching programmes: the Professional Player to Coach Scheme (PPCS) and the Coach Inclusion and Diversity Scheme (CIDS).
PPCS is a joint programme between the Premier League, EFL and PFA. It supports former players from Black, Asian and mixed-heritage backgrounds, as well as women, who have an ambition to coach by providing employment and training opportunities at Premier League and EFL clubs.
CIDS supports coaches from Black, Asian and mixed-heritage backgrounds, and women, by providing employment and training opportunities within Premier League and EFL Academies.
Attendees at the recent Coaching Craft workshop are the fourth and fifth cohorts respectively to engage with these programmes, which form central parts of the League’s No Room For Racism Action Plan work to develop more inclusive coaching pathways.
Overall, of the 81 coaches supported through PPCS and CIDS, 75 of them, or 93 per cent, are now employed full-time in professional football.
During the Coaching Craft event, participants took part in a range of activities as part of their 23-month placements with Premier League and EFL clubs. This included planning, delivering and evaluating coaching sessions and match tournaments with Under-15 Academy players.
Premier League Head of Coaching Pathways Osei Sankofa attended the workshops, and said: “Recognising there’s under-representation in coaching, one of the key pillars of the League’s No Room For Racism Action Plan has been to improve pathways into this profession. CIDS and PPCS are central to this.
“Workshops like this week’s feed into a wider, varied programme of holistic development in which participants can become more rounded on and off the training pitch. We see high rates of coaches being retained by their placement clubs and the overwhelming majority are now in full-time employment. So, over time, we expect there to be greater diversity across a range of positions.
“In preparation for next season, a number of roles across CIDS and PPCS will be advertised over the next month. We encourage coaches with the ambition, motivation and potential to apply for the various opportunities on offer.”
Hands-on experience
Former player and PFA Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Executive Christian Jolley was also in attendance. He said: “The Professional Player to Coach Scheme, delivered in collaboration with the Premier League and EFL, aims to create clear pathways for players to move into full-time coaching roles.
“The programme values the insight and experience these individuals bring from their playing careers, and gives them the structure and support to apply that expertise in a club environment.
“Placements offer hands-on experience across key football departments and the chance to develop the skills needed to thrive in the professional game.
“Our aim is to help shape highly skilled, well-rounded coaches – and to make sure the game benefits from the talent and knowledge already within it.”
VERSUS spoke with a range of programme participants to explain how the Premier League is supporting their careers.
Former Brentford professional Toumani Diagouraga, who has over 600 appearances, is part of PPCS as a coach at Middlesbrough. He was joined by CIDS participants Moaz Karim, Imran Hamid, and Eva Egginton who will complete their placements at Chelsea, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest respectively this summer.
Why is representation in coaching important?
Moaz: You have certain lived experiences and that's why variety in Academies is so important. If staff don't have similar lived experiences to players, they could be judgmental in certain ways or have the wrong idea of what a person is going through.
Toumani: Society is diverse, on the pitch is diverse and in the crowd is diverse. There's no reason why it shouldn't be diverse when it comes to coaching roles.
CIDS works to support women coaches in men’s football. What more can be done for women's representation?
Eva: More can definitely be done for women – not just outside the pitch from your medical teams to your psychologists – but on the pitch coaching boys, too. There's a lot of value in getting more faces on the grass and I think schemes like this are really beneficial.
How has the programme helped you and developed your coaching skills?
Imran: The course provides excellent facilitators with vast knowledge. We've also got the fantastic players that come and enjoy the facilities and the training experiences with us, so we get opportunities to coach players that we might not normally coach.
Moaz: The mentor support has been fantastic. We have access to academic studies and journals and are able to work on a project which is quite unique in terms of development in football. We try to look at the next frontier of how we can use brain training and cognitive development to help players improve.
Toumani: We've visited the army to work on how to deal with high pressure situations and leadership. We've done so much that I would have never been able to do by myself. The Premier League has actually opened us to a new world.
What is it like being part of world-class set-ups?
Imran: Being at Manchester United Academy has really given me an insight into how important it is to put the player first. Players need to feel that they're respected, they're cared for, they're loved, that their best interests are at heart. And I've learned that it's so important to develop the person and not just focus on football. The players take part in the Duke of Edinburgh award, so that holistic side of the development has been key at Manchester United.
Being an ex-professional player, what surprised you the most about transitioning into management?
Toumani: What surprised me are the hours and the dedication that go into coaching. As a player you just turn up to training and everything's done for you. You don't realise that the coaches have spent all day setting up the session, coming up with what the session's going to be.
What does coaching mean to you?
Eva: Coaching is about developing young people, it’s about developing people first and footballers second. But also that ability to trial, error, fail, pick themselves up, progress, and live and breathe through those stumbling blocks that are natural to within elite sport.
Photography from VERSUS
More info: The Premier League’s inclusive coaching
- 45 clubs across the Premier League and EFL have engaged with either PPCS or CIDS.
- 436 coaches are registered to the Coach Index (a self-registration system for coaches from under-represented groups), with 78 clubs signed up to use the platform when recruiting.
- The Premier League has recently launched a new Anti-Racist Coaching workshop, available to all Premier League and Category One Academies, to support Academy coaches and staff in facilitating culturally aware environments through a proactive approach to inclusive practices.
